Is it possible to become rich by stock trading? Do people make enough out of day trading?

As a trader at one of the largest US banks in the world, there is only one way to really become 'rich' through trading. That is spend years dedicating your life to it, and use a sucessful (and poorly remunerated) few years of track record to land a job at a prop shop or fund that pays you a commission or fat salary.

if you have $100k, the most fantastic traders would struggle to annualise much more than 10%, so you are paying yourself 10K a year. 

As a market taker, you have a disadvantage (you pay the Bid-offer spread and/or commission), meaning you are losing money if your trades break even. A much bigger issue is that traders are different. Certain skillsets or approaches work at different time. Thats why funds have loads of traders, if there was a pure skill to it all, they would big the top 3, give them a third of the pot each and rake in the money. Even the best traders at big instituiotns can lose money for sustained periods, and if it is just you, theres no other team to diversify your risk. 

Even if we ignore the technical difficulty the only way to make a decent living is to either find a job that pays you well to trade, or to be better than average and already be rich. If you have access to $1m + why bother trading? an extra million wont change your life if you have access to that much cash already, far better to go do a phD in something that can improve peoples lives, and drive your porsche at the weekends.

Trading is attractive as a get rich quick scheme because it looks simple (and everybody who posts support here seems to believe that..), but it is like chess. Easy to play around, hard to become the best. And to make money in the markets you have to be the best. 

Ask yourself this, why dont all those traders at banks and hedge funds who earn big bonuses just quit and trader at home?

Because it is nearly impossible for a single person to make a decent living trading. If all those guys who spend 12+ hours a day, make millions a year and have a tonne of cash in the bank dont think it is wise to quit and do it from their front room, why do you think you would do it with your grandma's birthday money?